Mark Clodi

by Kathy

  Jimbo was about a dozen steps behind them and almost ran into Veronica near the front door.

  “Well?” he whispered.

  “Get out! We will tell you when it is clear, like I said!” she whispered harshly back.

  “I am already in sweetie, I have a strong need to cover your ass and make sure absolutely nothing happens to you. Besides this place is empty, can’t you see it?”

  Veronica nodded, “Yeah, looks dead, you’re right. Check the garage. I will help the girls prowl around.”

  “Ah no, reverse that the garage is probably safe, the house could contain unknowns, I don’t want you getting shot.” Amended Jimbo.

  “Whatever.” she replied as she headed towards the kitchen and the door to the garage.

  Jimbo headed upstairs after nodding at both the zombie soldiers and saying, “Watch Veronica’s back, I am going to check upstairs.” He headed upstairs, made a show of searching the bedrooms and closets before stopping at the attic, it appeared to be a pull down ladder kind, you just pulled the rope and the ladder unfolded into the hallway. Jimbo reached up quietly and grabbed the rope. As he tugged on the rope he had to apply increasing force until it became apparent the ladder was being held in some way and would not open without breaking something. As he applied one last pull the rope broke off and hit him in the face.

  “Shit!” he said softly, wiping his hand across his forehead. “That hurt!” Jimbo had noticed that his sense of feeling was very sensitive lately, the slightest touch would create a sensational feeling that he had never gotten before he came back from the dead. 'Well that pretty much does it.', he thought, 'I think I can keep these guys alive for awhile, now I have to spin this in the right way.' Jimbo went downstairs looking for Veronica. He found her in the kitchen.

  “There is a mini-van in the garage, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, how did you know?” Veronica replied.

  “They are in the attic.” He held out the broken rope for her to see, “They have it barricaded in some way, we can get up there, but it might take an effort. I don’t see any reason to break in though, I mean, they are not going anywhere right? Lets just save them until we need them or until Max gets home.”

  “Maybe. Some of my people could use the boost. Any idea of how many are up there? I already sent one of the troops after Nancy and Trish.”

  “Yeah three there was a bedroom for a girl and a boy and a master bedroom. The boy's room had a bunk bed, so there could be four. I think they are in the attic, I can kind of tell where they are, my vision is sharper when it comes to seeing the living now. Now about Nancy and Trish, we don’t have much time, you need to know, they are kinda of getting together, like a political alliance. Nancy is going to do something for Trish, I am not sure what. They wanted me in, but did not try very hard, I firmly came down on your side of things, so, I guess what I am saying is for my support I need you to watch my back, okay? Also you gotta do something very soon about Julie. Very soon.”

  Veronica stood there for a second, absorbing what Jimbo had said, before nodded, “You got it, I watch your back, you watch mine. You are getting the next recruit, they don’t have to know about it, but you are. I may need, I mean, ‘we’ may need you to have more resources. Here they come.”

  Jimbo and Veronica were standing quietly in the kitchen when Trish and Nancy came in.

  “So the gangs all here, the important members anyway. What’s the story V, is the place clear?”

  “No they are some living in the attic, we don’t know how many, they are barricaded in.” Veronica said. Jimbo marveled at her control, she was not giving anything away in her mannerisms in her speech to Nancy now.

  “Well V, lets go see this attic and decide what to do.”

  The four of them headed up the stairs and Jimbo showed them the broken rope and pointed out the attack opening to them in the twilight of the pre-dawn morning.

  “Get em out, I say.” said Trish, “Just like we agreed.”

  “Yep, it is chomping time, it is high time for the executive and judicial branches to get some support, and you too Jimbo, if there are three.” said Nancy.

  “I want to wait.” said Veronica, “They are not going anywhere and if Max gets here and is stronger than we think, well, they might prove to be a good bargaining chip to get our shit out of the fire. Plus we don’t really need any food just yet. So I say we save them until we need them. If Max does not show in a day or so we go in after them, no sense in letting the meat spoil, right?” said Veronica.

  Nancy replied, “Not how we agreed to do things V. Not at all what I was thinking. Jimbo?”

  Jimbo seemed to think it over for a bit as the three women looked at him, “You know I was kinda looking forward to a new recruit or two myself, but Veronica seems to make sense, what is another day or two, we can scrounge for other refugees in the neighborhood if we get hungry….”

  “Dammit, I want a little old fashioned revenge on Max? What about that? Lets pull em down and dispense a little justice!”

  “We don't need em Nancy! Justice can be served later, why rush things?”

  Nancy seemed to think this over for moment, then looked up at the ceiling. The changes that had happened to her had sharpened her vision to the point where she could see the glowing pattern of a living person even through thin walls. Up above her she noticed the flowing lines of a living being just to one side of the attic access. “Well so we don't open up the door then?”

  Jimbo and Veronica nodded, Trish just scowled. Nancy sighed, nodded her head and leaped upwards driving her hand through the ceiling drywall to grasp what she thought was the leg of someone she presumed to be Max's wife. A bit of chaos ensued as Jimbo grabbed Nancy's leg and tried to pull her down from the ceiling. Sarah started screaming as her leg was pulled through the ceiling, which woke the kids up. They immediately stumbled over the ceiling rafters to pull ineffectively at their mom's arms as she tried to lever herself up out of the hole that was forming in the weakened drywall between two of the rafters. Underneath Trish punched Jimbo, dazing him, yet he held onto Nancy, Veronica hesitated for an instant before coming to Jimbo's aid by tackling Trish, the two of them tumbled down the nearby stairs at the same time that Jimbo took another blow to the face from one of Nancy's kicks. The blow was hard enough to dislodge his grasp from her other leg and left him sprawled with his head and shoulders through the bottom part of the bathroom door. Cursing he struggled to get free of the hollow core door and stop Nancy, he was too late and he could only watch as Nancy, hands wrapped around a woman's leg bent her head over and took a meaty bite just above the knee.

  The woman screamed as Jimbo jumped up, Nancy let go of the leg, which disappeared quickly into the ceiling with a shower of insulation and broken drywall. Nancy, of course, landed on her feet, then looked at Jimbo and laughed, saying, “See? I didn't open the door.”

  Infuriated Jimbo just looked at her, “You selfish.....” He turned away to compose himself and then received a mental message from Bobby, “A woman and a boy just pulled up and got out of their car, they are heading up to the house now.”

  “What? What Jimbo? Nothing to say?” taunted Nancy. Then she heard the front storm door creaking open and a woman’s voice call out, “Hold up Cory, you don’t know what is in there, wait for me.”

  Chapter 46

  Cory reached the door first and had it half opened when Amelia warned him to wait for her. He paused at the door and was looking back at her when the zombie woman appeared behind him, behind her another woman appeared

  “Cory run!” she screamed at him as she stepped up with her trusty fire poker. Cory, however did not run, he ducked and side stepped off of Max’s porch, the zombie grabbing for him missed and screamed at him. Amelia’s rush put her into swinging range and her first blow caught the zombie above the eyes, almost dead on with the front of her half turned forehead. The poker smashed in easily and the zombie collapsed.

  “Oh God! I hope that wasn’t Max’s wife!” sh
e yelled to Cory who was getting back to his feet while Amelia backed away from the front door. Glancing at the boy she saw that he was fine and then shifted her eyes again to the front door, she did a double take and stammered, “How? What…how. How did you get here?” at the figure who had appeared on the other side of Max’s storm door.

  Nancy smiled at her and said, “Well, well look what the cat drug back to us! So you and Max hooked up huh?” Calling over her shoulder she said to an unseen person, “V, it is Amelia from work! Yeah again! Tell Julie to move the troops around, looks like Amelia took one of your recruits down too.” Then back to Amelia, she said, ”You know when you got away I really did not think you would make it far. Where is Max?”

  “Max?” Amelia stammered, her spirits sinking, “He is not here? Cory get in the car, quick!”

  A zombie raced out from the far side of the house, not at Amelia or Cory, but to put himself between them and the car. Cory took a few steps towards the car, then another zombie appeared on his side of the house, “Amelia! There are more of them!” Cory backed away from the zombie, unfortunately he was also backing away from Amelia, which left her effectively surrounded by them with Cory outside the circle.

  “Give it up deary, I think we have you surrounded, tell the boy to stop and we will make it easy for you. Jimbo, I took the last one, you can have this one, she's even pretty, you'll like her.” said Nancy, as she stepped through the door outside.

  “Never! Run Cory!” Amelia stepped up and swung at Nancy with all her might. Nancy raised her arm and tried to catch the fire poker, however Amelia had learned to expect such defensive reactions in the last few days of fighting and at the last minute she lowered the poker to hit Nancy in the lower leg, with a sickening crack Nancy went down. Nancy screamed and grabbed her leg with both hands as another zombie Amelia recognized stepped over her, ‘V’, Nancy had called her. “C’mon V, that is your name right? Just let us get out of here. Please.” Amelia begged.

  “Fucking crucify her ‘V’, no getting away for her, I want her dead! That bitch broke my fucking leg!” frothy spittle sprayed out of Nancy mouth as she screamed.

  Veronica never took her eyes off Amelia, “If things were different maybe I could do that, things have changed, we need food now. Well now that Nancy is wounded and needs to heal up. Sorry, it is nothing personal. I won’t let them eat the boy though, when we catch him. And we will.”

  Amelia looked around and sure enough Cory had bolted like she said, the zombie on that side of the house was returning, getting back into position as if he had tried to chase the boy down and then given up.

  “Then there is nothing I can do.” Amelia heard herself say, after that she let out a cry of rage and swung at Veronica, deliberately pulling her blow back and then edging forward, which caused Veronica’s blocking arm to miss. The blow took Veronica in the middle of her chest and ripped into her white blouse, though her blouse and skin, lodging as near as Amelia could tell in her right breast. Veronica gasped, tried to grab the fire poker and swung her right hand at Amelia ineffectively before stumbling to her knees. Amelia didn't stop, she edged past Veronica and jumped over Nancy's legs as she leaped into the house, barreling into Jimbo, Jimbo wrapped his arms around Amelia, trying to get a good hold on her. “Stop fighting, I'm gonna let you go, get up into the attic if you can.” the wriggling human woman, didn't stop fighting and Jimbo let her go, she did, however, run up the stairs when he released her, dropping the fire poker onto the floor.

  “You fucking let her go Jimbo!” screamed Nancy from on the front porch.

  “Yeah, I did.” said Jimbo, not bothering to add the 'fuck you' to his reply. “Where is she gonna go Nancy? She's stuck just like poor Max's wife and we can take them anytime we need to.”

  Chapter 47

  Pain, that was all there was, pain. Sarah grasped her leg and tried to stem the bleeding, one of the kids handed her a towel and she pressed it against the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. She should never have moved over by the attic door to try and listen to what they were saying, who knew that they could jump so high and tear through a ceiling like it was paper?

  Tears were streaming down her face when she heard the woman below begging for help. Leaning over and clearing insulation out of the way she saw a young woman down below with a pleading look on her face.

  “Please! Please help me! let me into the attic, I haven't been bit, I'm not a zombie.”

  A chill went down Sarah's spine. 'Bit? Bit? Was she bit? Oh God!', she had thought one of them had stabbed her, lifting the towel she examined the wound closely while the woman continued pleading below. One edge of her wound clearly showed a jagged incision made by human teeth.

  “What do you mean you're not bitten?” Sarah yelled through the hole, “What difference does biting make?”

  “It is...I'm not one of them, let me up, please!” Amelia begged, looking behind her she saw Jimbo and Veronica bodily in front of Nancy preventing her from coming up the stairs. Veronica had Amelia's poker and was waving it in Nancy's face as they argued. “Please, she is going to get up here and there is no where else I can go!”

  “What do you mean about the biting?!” Sarah demanded once again.

  “It is, well, they bite you, that is how it happens, how you turn into one of them.”

  “Oh God. Oh no-no-no!”

  “You were bitten?” Amelia called up.

  “No-no-no!” as she sobbed she pushed the two by four that had been blocking the attic access and the ladder swung down to Amelia.

  Amelia wasted no time scrambling up the ladder and pulling the door back closed behind her.

  “When were you bit?” Amelia said.

  Sobbing Sarah didn't answer. “When. Were. You. Bit?” Amelia asked again.

  “Just now, just right now, they, one of them pulled my leg through the ceiling and bit into it.”

  “Okay, I was with this woman who got bitten, she, she lasted awhile, we might be able to get you some help if we can get past them.” Amelia stopped, knowing, without outside help, they were not going to get by the zombies in the house.

  Turning to the kids, she said, “Hi. What are your names? I am Amelia.”

  The kids, with pale tear stained faces looked well beyond scared, they mumbled their names, quietly. “It'll be alright, it will be okay, don't worry alright?” The lie sounded hollow even to Amelia as she spoke it. “Lets get your mom over there, on that piece of wood and away from this hole, okay?”

  The kids helped her move Sarah to the plywood where they had been sleeping.

  Chapter 48

  Amelia said ‘Run!’, Cory ran. No way he was going to leave her though, no way at all. He doubled back around the house after running around the nearest corner, the zombie that had tried to chase him gave up really easily and Cory was now standing in what he thought was the backyard of the house behind the one he and Amelia had tried to go into. He saw two zombies in the backyard of Max’s house, a girl and a slow moving guy, the guy started around the side of the house and Cory thought he could take out the girl on his own, he started climbing over the fence when a hand grabbed onto his ankle and pulled him back down into the backyard, towards a bushy evergreen tree, Cory struggled to grab something, anything to stop his journey, nonetheless he ended up under the boughs of an evergreen tree, where he was unceremoniously flipped onto his back to look into his captors eyes.

  “You’re just a..you’re justa kid!” Cory exclaimed.

  The young man who had grabbed Cory, shrugged and said, “Don’t go nowhere or I’ll hafta whack ya.” And proceeded to sit down next to Cory, where upon he pulled a hand held electronic device out of his pants pocket and started playing it.

  Cory sat for a few minutes thinking, they both started when they heard screams from in front of Max’s house, but the other boy put his hand on Cory’s wrist, as a reminder to stay put.

  “I don’t think they got her, sounds like they are screaming at each other.” The boys eyes glazed o
ver a little, though his hand did not leave Cory's wrist, his eyes regained their focus, “Oh yeah, she got away, they are fighting, she's in the house.”

  “How do you know that?”

  The boy just looked at him and shook his head side to side, saying nothing. Again Cory forced himself to think calmly, this kid was not normal, he knew that, the guy had barely struggled to get him off the fence and drag him under this bush.

  “You’re a…uh, I mean you are one of them? Right?” he asked tentatively. The other boy nodded ‘yes’, but did not say anything. Curious, despite his situation, he sat up and tried to get a look at what the other boy was playing on his gaming device. “Is that ‘Silent Hill’?”

  Again the boy nodded yes so Cory continued, “My mom wouldn’t let me play that, she said it was too violent, I have a DS though it ain’t out for that yet anyway.”

  “They don't make it for the DS, they only make games for little kids for that. I didn’t get this until yesterday, I picked up a DS too, hardly had a chance to play anything until last night. My name is Bobby, what’s yours?” said Bobby, his eyes never leaving the screen.

  “Cory. Are you with them?”

  “Yeah. No. Kinda. I am with Jimbo, and Jimbo is with them. It is complicated. I am like a ‘field agent’. Jimbo says I am his secret weapon, his eyes and ears in the field. Like ‘Ghost Recon’ or something. All I know is I got a DS now too, it is in my bag. What happened to your shoes?”

  “Ah, Amelia left them at the hotel room, there was this other lady, Diane, she got bitten and hurt real bad and started to turn into one of them, um, I mean one of you. We left in a hurry I guess, I was asleep. She remembered my games though. I have new shoes in the car.” replied Cory. “So what is it like? You know, changing?”

  Bobby put the game on pause and said, “Cold. Really cold, I kinda don’t remember much about it, but I am always cold now, unless it is just after I eat, then I get warm for awhile, I feel almost like I have the flu, unless I eat. Eating is pretty gross, I don’t like it, even though it makes me feel better.”